MISSOULA — During a big week for Yellowstone National Park wildlife, Missoulians gathered at Xplorer Maps to learn more about two of the park’s key species.
Sam Archibald, lead field educator for the Yellowstone Forever Institute, presented January’s “Cartography Comes Alive” on Yellowstone wolves and bison.
“Show of hands, how many of you have been to Yellowstone?” Archibald asked, as nearly the entire crowd raised their hands. “Awesome, I know it can be easy to take the places we live for granted.”
But Yellowstone, Archibald said, is not just any place. It offers a unique opportunity for learning, particularly when it comes to wolves and bison.
Trucks loaded with wolves drove through a park gate 30 years ago, beginning reintroduction after decades off the landscape. Now that enough time has passed since reintroduction, scientists have been able to build upon years of research.
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“Now with wolves back on the landscape, with bison, with grizzlies, we have an opportunity to study these animals in their full natural suites,” Archibald said.
“It's very hard to get any sort of controlled experiment on a landscape scale. Yellowstone came pretty close with a landscape that was very well studied for 70 years prior to wolf reintroduction, and then fairly well studied for the last 30 years," Archibald continued.
Wolves and bison are considered keystone species — species that have a major impact on other animals and on the landscape around them.
Yellowstone National Park is one of the few places where scientists and the public can get a really good look at them, and the ways they influence the world around them.
“I like to say there are no guarantees in Yellowstone, but bison are pretty much a guarantee," Archibald said. "As you drive out of Lamar on a summer's day and see thousands of bison, it provides a glimpse of what much of this continent used to look like."
Mandela Leola van Eeden, with Xplorer Maps, was excited by the crowd that turned up to learn more about Montana’s landscape.
“It inspires me because I feel living in Missoula is a privilege and with privilege comes responsibility and part of that responsibility is getting educated and getting engaged,” she said.
With populations up and research ongoing, bison and wolves are reaching more parts of their historic ranges.
The InterTribal Buffalo Council and Yellowstone Forever’s Bison Transfer Program have distributed hundreds of bison to more than 27 tribes. One week ago, more wolves were reintroduced in Colorado.
Archibald said that, like wolves and bison, humans also have a major impact on the landscape.
“It’s all too easy to focus on the negative, but things like Yellowstone wolf reintroduction, things like the bison transfer program, the ongoing re-wilding with bison, I think serve as really powerful examples that humans can make a positive impact," he said.
